A Case Study of L1 Interference in Speech Acts among Chinese L2 Students

Krish, Pramela; May, Oh Chen

doi:10.17576/3l-2020-2601-08

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, compliment responses and refusals were found relatively easy while requests were more difficult for L2 Chinese learners in Li et al (2019). Krish and May (2020) identified interference of L1 cultural knowledge and linguistic rules in L2 Chinese learners' pragmatic performance of five speech acts: compliments, requests, refusals, apologies, and complaints. Taken together, these studies have provided evidence that pragmatic tasks involving different speech acts may have varying degrees of difficulty for L2 learners and that their relative difficulty may be affected by the learners' L1 background and proficiency level, the assessment method used, and the contextual variables of power, social distance, and imposition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

The difficulty of oral speech act production tasks in second language pragmatics testing

Huang

Lu²

2023

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examined the relative difficulty of oral speech act production tasks involving eight different types of speech acts for Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners and the effects of three contextual variables, namely, power, social distance, and imposition, on such difficulty. Eight Oral Discourse Completion Task items, each representing a unique combination of the three contextual variables, were designed for each speech act. Eighty Chinese EFL learners responded to these items and their responses were rated for appropriateness by two native-speaking college English instructors. A Many-facet Rasch Measurement analysis suggested that the eight speech acts can be ordered by ascending difficulty as follows: Thank, Request, Suggestion, Disagreement, Invitation, Refusal, Offer, and Apology. Significant effects on performance scores were found for the interaction between each of the three contextual variables and speech act, and the specific effects observed varied by speech act. The implications of our findings for L2 pragmatics testing are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

The difficulty of oral speech act production tasks in second language pragmatics testing

Huang

Lu²

2023

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the Tamil sentence, the verb is relocated to the end. Although the literal English translations of (i), (ii) and (iii) appear to consist of appropriate vocabulary items and content, the words are incorrectly and awkwardly arranged (Krish & Oh, 2020). However, though the word order is incorrect in English, they are considered acceptable in Tamil.…”

Section: Tamil Interference In English Writingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mother Tongue Interference in English Writing among Tamil School Students

Nair

Krish

2021

gema

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Writing is considered one of the most challenging language skills that students need to acquire. In Malaysia's vernacular schools, students encounter several challenges as they need to write in variety of languages: their mother tongue, Malay and English. The students' mother tongue can interfere when writing in English due to the difference of structures between these languages. This paper aims to explore this issue further by examining how the Tamil language in particular influences its young native speakers' writing of English essays. For the purpose of this study, 30 writing samples of Year 5 students from a Tamil school were studied in terms of structure, vocabulary usage, and spelling. Errors committed in the essays were identified, categorized and scrutinized. The findings reveal that the main issues in the students' writings are related to grammar, direct translation of the Tamil language, vocabulary and spelling. While we need to understand why and how mother tongue interference affects their writing, it is crucial to curb these writing issues at the primary school level so that such errors can be minimized as they will be doing higher levels of writing. The findings of the study suggest that students need to recognise the differences between their first language (L1) and the English language and learn to understand the different features and structures of the languages in order to write communicative and correct sentences.

show abstract

“…According to Masood, Shafi, Rahim, and Darwesh (2020) students face interference from their native language when speaking English and it cause the negative transfer from the L1 to L2 structure. Moreover, Krish and Oh (2020) also stated that first language interference lead to grammatical and structural errors in the English (L2) language. They also add the language interference resulted in misunderstanding and frustration for both speaker and hearer because the direct translations and grammatical errors may convey the messages that contrast from what the students initially intend to say.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Comparative Study Between China and Malaysia: Investigating the Influence of First Language (L1) Syntax in Speaking English (L2) among Primary School Students

Maniam

Ridzuan

Santhia

et al. 2021

5007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For Malaysian students, speaking in English is one of the most challenging skills to master, especially if they do not have a strong command of the language. Meanwhile in China, the English language is primarily employed as a means of academic communication and teaching. This paper aims to identify which linguistic items have been transferred positively and negatively from L1 (Bahasa Melayu and Mandarin) in speaking English (L2) among primary school students. A qualitative study among primary school students from China and Malaysia was carried out using purposive sampling. Based on the findings, four types of syntactic errors from the Malaysian students' speech were identified. It was evident that the students had difficulties to speak correctly in terms of sentence structure. The four syntactic errors found are simple past, simple present, verb ‘to be’ and subject-verb-agreement. Meanwhile, it has been found that Chinese students frequently produce linguistic mistakes during their utterances of L2 speech as a result of L1 interference. This research also exposed that the students are still unconsciously relying on their mother tongue to translate their sentence into L2. The study is expected to help ESL teachers to draw the analogies between corresponding L1 and L2 syntax constructions. The findings will contribute and direct the learners’ attention to cross-language syntactic similarities and differences and thus guide them to a deeper understanding of underlying linguistic structure.

show abstract

A Case Study of L1 Interference in Speech Acts among Chinese L2 Students

Cited by 7 publications

References 12 publications

The difficulty of oral speech act production tasks in second language pragmatics testing

The difficulty of oral speech act production tasks in second language pragmatics testing

Mother Tongue Interference in English Writing among Tamil School Students

A Comparative Study Between China and Malaysia: Investigating the Influence of First Language (L1) Syntax in Speaking English (L2) among Primary School Students

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About